Turkey - Ottoman Empire-2 project
Ankara, strengthening its political position, its army and navy, the economy, has already become a powerful regional power. But in the Turkish elite, the memory of the status of one of the world powers, one of the centers of power, the leader of the Islamic world - the Ottoman Empire is alive. It is possible that we are witnessing a slow but sure reconstruction of this state - the embodiment of the project “Ottoman Empire -2”.
The situation in the modern world is such that the most ambitious projects become possible: the United States is rapidly losing superpower status; The PRC very quickly takes the place of the USSR and even plans to become the number one economy, although in its rapid growth there is the possibility of an equally rapid collapse; in the Islamic world, the collapse of the old leaders - Iraq and Egypt, Syria and Libya under attack; the Red Empire collapsed - Ankara got the opportunity to strengthen its position in the South Caucasus, in the Crimea; the destruction of Yugoslavia allowed to increase its influence in the Balkans and revealed a lot of potential opportunities for expansion of Turkish expansion; united Europe is in a fever, it is “bursting at the seams”. When, if not now, strengthen positions and take steps in the direction of your Goal ?!
Economy, population
The Turkish economy is developing more dynamically than the European, if the countries of Southern Europe - Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal are in a crisis and there is no way out of it, except to leave the EU and restore their monetary systems, with a sharp decline in living standards. Many northern states - Iceland, Ireland, England, the countries of the former Soviet Baltic states face serious problems - there is “quiet horror” in general, the population just runs away, the countries are emptying before their eyes. In 2010, Turkey was second only to China and Argentina in economic growth and ranked 15 in the world in terms of economic power. In terms of economic growth, Turkey in the first quarter of 2011 of the year was ahead of all the countries of the G-20 (G-20), the economy grew by 11%, and the Chinese one by 9,7%.
The 2008-2009 crisis has slowed down the pace of growth somewhat, but did not affect Turkey as much as Europe did. Industries such as manufacturing, textile, leather, food, chemical, pharmaceutical, energy, metallurgy, shipbuilding, automotive (6-e place in Europe for the production of cars), the production of household goods, construction and tourism. Woodworking is also developed, in the state oil, coal, lead, zinc, iron and copper ores are mined. The state actively supports small and medium businesses.
The country is attractive to international investors, its labor is cheaper than the European one, qualified. A large percentage of the young working-age population, in contrast to the increasingly “aging” countries of Europe. Turkey has good sales markets - Russia, the CIS countries, the Middle East. Turkey has a favorable geographical position - the “bridge” between Asia and Europe, large projects are being developed for the transit of hydrocarbons from Iran and Turkmenistan to Europe, and the country will benefit a lot from this. In her hands is an important strategic path: the Black Sea - the Mediterranean Sea, a large sea coast. Turkey has a great potential for growing exports of agricultural products due to its natural resources and vast territory suitable for farming, which is a very important factor in the context of the constant growth of food consumption on the planet and the threat of “food wars”.
Turkey has no such problems as “aging” and population reduction, as in most European countries and Russia, the population size: in the 20 of the 20th century there were approximately 12-13 million, in the 2010 year - 73 million and the growth continues.
Ideology
The Turkish elite builds its domestic and foreign policy on four basic principles: neo-Ottomanism - with the help of media, cinema, youth policy, the Turks create idealized ideas about the Ottoman Empire, the idea of Turkey’s leading role in the region is being introduced. In foreign policy, there is an idea of three strategic directions of expansion: to the south-west, in the direction of Turkey-Syria-Lebanon-Egypt, southern - Iraq and the countries of the Persian Gulf, southeast - Iran and Pakistan. This ideology was developed by the Anglo-Saxons, the days of the “cold war”, when Turkey was planning to become the leader of the Islamic world, in opposition to the Soviet Union.
The second principle is Neopanturkism, this is another area of work under the project “Ottoman Empire-2”. Work closely with Azerbaijan, the Crimean Tatars, there is a network in Russia. The third is neo-kemism, with the idealization of the role of Mustafa Kemal, and the fourth principle is Turkish Eurasianism. Turkey is considered the center of Eurasia, a “bridge” from Asia to Europe, between the Islamic world and Europe.
At the core, they all provide a good basis for the Ideology of a new great power. The new center of power.
Possible areas of expansion
They are quite traditional and justified by the geographical position of Turkey, these territories used to be part of the Ottoman Empire or were under its great influence. Moreover, the expansion will not necessarily be military, at least until the beginning of major political shifts and crises on the planet, the expansion is already underway - cultural, economic, demographic.
Balkan Peninsula: before expansion was impossible, there were powerful states - Yugoslavia, the social bloc countries, Greece. At present Greece “lies”, Yugoslavia is completely fragmented, and the process of fragmentation continues. There are powerful and passionary "points of support" - Muslims Albanians and Bosnians. Russia is no longer the “elder brother” of the Slavs of the Balkans, they are fragmented, decomposed, their elites have been Westernized. Europe itself is experiencing a lot of problems, it will soon not be up to the Balkans.
South Caucasus: Azerbaijan, in principle, is turning into Ankara's “vassal”, it is having an increasing influence on its culture (it almost fell out of the Russian Field), the economy, the army. Georgia at any moment may lose Muslim Ajaria. Thus, according to WikiLeaks, during the August 2008 war of the year, Turkey was ready to send troops into this south-western region of the Georgian state and take it under control. Georgia was saved only by the fact that Russia did not make a decision to continue the operation. In addition, Turkish emissaries also have connections in the North Caucasus - contacts between Chechen militants and Turkish special services are well known.
Iran, Iraq, Syria: all three countries are now under attack and at any moment can be plunged into a large-scale conflict. In Iraq, in recent years, Turkish troops have regularly conducted “counter-terrorism operations” against Kurdish armed groups. Against Libya and Iran, the Western media and diplomats are leading a real information outage, and when it develops into a "hot" only a matter of time. Naturally, Ankara can receive certain "dividends" from this. Although in general, Turkey has recently been cooperating quite well with the same Iran, but relations with Israel have sharply “cooled” due to events related to the attack on "Flotilla of freedom "on May 31, 2010. Erdogan accused Israel of pursuing a policy of" state terrorism ", Turkey demanded an official apology from the Israeli government and payment of compensation to the families of the victims.
The main directions of military development
The Turkish army is 10-th in power in the world and 5-th among NATO countries, and in Europe its power will soon be the first (especially if you remove the nuclear weapon). European countries: first, reduce heavy weapons, the number of armies, including Germany, England, France; secondly, they have a rather low combat capability, they are actually not ready to fight “face to face”, to carry out large ground operations. The army in Turkey is in high esteem, it is not "mowed down" from it, its number is more than 600 thousand people. Although in recent years it has also been reduced, by the 2014 year, the Ground Forces plan to reduce to 280-300 thousands of people from 390 thousands, while saturating them with new equipment and controls. True, the armored vehicles of the reduced parts are transferred to the gendarmerie - it must take on the main struggle against the Kurdish rebels.
- Active shipbuilding, despite the fact that at present the Turkish Navy has complete superiority over any state in the Black Sea. This is especially evident in the area of the submarine fleet and the armament of the Turkish Navy with anti-ship missiles - according to them the Turks surpasses the most powerful potential enemy, the Black Sea Fleet, in 3-4 times. And the superiority is only growing, in the course of modernization of the ships and submarines of the Turkish Navy, the commissioning of new units.
Work is underway on a series of corvettes designed by the MilGem F511 “Heybeliada” project; in 2007, the first corvette was laid out according to the new program, in 2008, the second one. This year the first corvette will already be commissioned, in the 2012 year the second one will also be commissioned. Total plan to build 8 corvettes in this series. For the surface fleet, work is underway on the TF-2000 URO-Air defense frigate, they are planning to build 4-6 units. Work is underway to create a single naval command and control system, new patrol boats, tank landing ships are being built, there is a project to build new mine-sweeping ships. A series of 4-x special MOSHIP ships is being built to conduct search and rescue rescue submarines. For the submarine fleet, Ankara adopted such a plan that with the constant modernization of the old submarines and the commissioning of new ones in constant readiness there would be at least 13-14 naval submarines.
And the other day there was a general sensation sounded: Murad Bayar, head of the country's defense industry secretariat, said that success in shipbuilding would soon allow Turkey to build its aircraft carriers. Although it is clear that Turkish shipbuilders themselves cannot build it. But with the help of American, Italian, German, Swedish, Norwegian and other companies in Turkey, this is quite possible in the near future. Turkey skillfully uses the achievements of European and American shipbuilders for the needs of its fleet.
Why does the current Turkey aircraft carrier? There is no need, she has quite balanced naval forces, sufficient for the defense of the coast. But now, if Ankara sees the Ottoman Empire-2 in the future, it is quite necessary for the aircraft carriers, like any great power.
- In the field of the Air Force, Ankara plans to purchase 5 generation fighters from the US, up to Lockheed Martin F-116 Lightning II units, up to 35 units, they should start coming in from the 2014 year. Ankara buys Lockheed Martin's F-30 Block 16 + X-NUMX fighter jets, the aircraft will be delivered from this year to the 50 year. In addition, the possibility of creating their own fighter is being studied - the new Turkish fighters want to adopt for the 2013 year. Suggestions for the possible support of the national aircraft company Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) have already been voiced by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Saab. Negotiations with the Turkish side are also held by Brazilians - Embraer.
Turkey develops drone direction aviation: in 2010, Turkish designers created the first domestic Anka reconnaissance drone, it is clear that Turkey will not reach the heights of the United States and Israel. But at least it will have its own devices, and you can sell it to neighbors, Baku has already made an offer to jointly produce UAVs.
In the field of tank building: there is an active modernization of the main armaments tanks Leopard 1 and M60. A batch of Leopard-2 was purchased - 339 units. There is a project to create its main tank Altai - the contract was signed in 2008, they are planning to release a test batch in 2012.
Sources of:
http://www.turkishnews.ru/ekonomika_i_biznes_v_turcii/
http://topwar.ru/3935-veroyatnost-tureckoj-revolyucii.html
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